Oh, what a beautiful letter! If this doesn’t remind the reader what it feels like to be young and in love, perhaps the reader never was either of those.

Dart writes in the afterglow of a phone call he made to Dot as an early Christmas gift to himself. Having heard her voice and told her some important things on his mind, he misses her more than before.

“Even though I’ve felt that we would eventually get some of the things we’ve been thinking said to each other, now that we’ve said them, it seems that we’re ever so much closer in mind and spirit than we were.”

He tells her he is constantly reminded of things about her that delight him. He’s glad she likes the same music he does. He’s tickled that they have the same ideas of what’s fun and share a  similar sense of humor.

He has come to the profound realization that being with her feels more natural than any other girls he’s ever spent time with. Feeling a little foolish about how long it took him to learn, he now sees the big difference between a girl who went out with a boy because she wanted to do something or go somewhere, and a girl who went somewhere or did something because she wanted to be with that boy. He sees now that he has been a free ticket and reliable transportation to so many girls, but he knows that Dot truly loves to simply be with him.

His mother has made the wise comment that Dot and Dart will have a fine time “growing up together.” Now he sees what she meant. Until Dot, all the dates he’d been on felt stilted, like something was missing. He now sees that what was missing was a natural, honest interest in the other person – caring about what they were doing or what they thought. “Beyond that, what seems to pass between us, whether we’re in each other’s arms or a quarter of the world apart, is indescribable. We read about it in books before it happened to us, and we scoffed or longed, perhaps. But now our early scoffing proved how young we were. Our longings show we were growing up. But our love shows that we’re still young, … for only the young fall in love, and once in love, they stay young.”

Is it any wonder these two kids built a beautiful life together?

Now Dot writes that Dart’s voice is still whispering in her ear, even though 10 hours have passed since his phone call. “I love you with all my heart and soul and hearing your voice over 3,000 miles utterly melts me.”

She says that when she hung up the phone, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so she did a little of both. “My family thinks I’m nuts, but as long as you love me, no one else matters.”

Poignantly, she says that she was so relieved that he wasn’t calling to tell her he was going overseas. She knows that day will eventually arrive but says, “I’ll face that heartbreak when I come to it.”

For a couple of pages, she fills him in on news. She was profoundly moved by the performance of Handel’s “Messiah” at her church. She had the sensation that Dart was sitting next to her, so she turned and looked. The woman next to her gave her a queer look, as though she was considering Dot’s sanity. “I know I’m crazy – over you.”

Tonight, she and Betty went to see “Casanova Brown,” and on Christmas Eve, she, Cynthia and Janie will see “Since You went Away.” They all expect to bawl themselves sick because it’s such a sad movie.

She recently read a letter from Dart where he exclaims that he just has to get to her graduation. She warns him that he has just two months to complete his travel arrangements to Willoughby. Recognizing the impossibility of that feat, she says “It was a lovely dream while it lasted.”

“I love you, Darling, and someday (God, please make it soon), I’ll say it to you in person with all the feeling that Ronald Coleman puts into his love scenes. The only difference being that I won’t be acting. I mean it with all my heart.”